Allegra Fairweather_ Paranormal Investigator - Janni Nell [74]
The man with glinting spectacles snorted, “No amount of apologizing will bring back McEwen and Malcolm.”
Leaning toward Douglas, I lowered my voice. “Who is that man?”
“I don’t recognize him. He’s not from the village.”
“Then what’s he doing here?”
“Stirring up trouble,” said Douglas.
Nobody stirs up trouble for fun. There is always an agenda, always a motive. You just have to find out what it is. Then you can win.
Glinting Spectacles said, “Someone must pay for the deaths of two good men.”
I whispered to Douglas, “Keep him talking.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out who he is.” I climbed down off the chair. Keeping my head low, I moved toward the door that led to the street.
Apparently my head wasn’t low enough. Someone near the door said, “Where’s she going?”
I froze. Everyone turned to look at me. The crowd moved closer, jostling.
Someone squeezed my arm, pinching the skin. “You’re not running out on us, are you?”
Douglas’s voice rang out over the crowd. “She’s not going anywhere. Are you, Allegra?”
“No,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “I’m staying right here.”
“You’ll answer to me if you leave,” Douglas said sternly.
It was a bluff, but the crowd bought it. They relaxed.
Douglas drew their attention away from me by offering a round of free drinks.
Glinting Spectacles said something in reply but I didn’t hear it. I was too busy slipping out the door.
Once in the street I made my way to the back of Mac’s. I went in through the kitchen door and crept back into the bar, edging my way around the room until I neared Glinting Spectacles.
He was a tall man in faded jeans and an old plaid jacket. Something about his rigid stance didn’t fit with either the clothes or his tousled hair. He looked as though he’d be more comfortable in a tux. I imagined him dressed that way with neatly combed hair. Bingo!
It was Phillips, the butler from Maitland House.
As I inched closer, he called out to the room at large. “Someone must pay for the murder of our friends! They were alive when Allegra Fairweather came here. Now they are dead. She must be held accountable.”
There was no logic to his words, but an enraged crowd doesn’t think logically. They act. Any half decent puppeteer can control them.
Phillips caught sight of me.
“There she is!” he said. “Restrain her and question her!”
We both knew that this crowd would bash first and ask questions later.
I squared my shoulders and met his eyes. He thought he was safe under his disguise but he was wrong.
My voice rang out over the crowd. “You called McEwen and Malcolm friends.”
“Our friends,” he said, “not yours.”
“McEwen was no friend of yours,” I said. “Everyone knows how much he hated you, Phillips.”
His mouth fell open.
Stuart MacDuff said, “Phillips from Maitland House?”
“Yep.”
Stuart started to say something about how badly Phillips had treated McEwen, but Phillips didn’t wait to hear it. Shoving people aside, he headed for the kitchen door. He pushed it open and ran.
The crowd surged after him. I flattened myself against the wall and let them go.
When the pub had emptied, I flopped onto a barstool. Douglas set a double scotch in front of me. I downed it in one gulp.
“That was close,” he said, refilling our glasses.
I was beginning to relax when the villagers started filtering back into the pub.
John the fisherman gave me a cold stare and a wide berth. He wasn’t the only one. I was beginning to feel like a pariah when Mrs. Ferguson tapped me on the shoulder.
“Would you walk me home?” she asked. “I get a bit scared wandering around on my own at night.”
Oh really? This was a woman who was not afraid, after the discovery of two bodies, to take a stroll along the loch alone. I stared at her in disbelief. Her eyes were kind. I realized she was trying to get me out of the